Once when my kids were little, I found a little garter snake that I put in a bucket to show them, before I put it out back near a wood pile. Of course, my daughter asked "will it bite?" and I said "No honey. It's just a baby. Let me get it out of the bucket to show you." I reached in and the little thing bit my finger and was hanging on as I lifted my hand out to show them. Needless to say, she hasn't believed me since.

Once when my kids were little, I found a little garter snake that I put in a bucket to show them, before I put it out back near a wood pile. Of course, my daughter asked "will it bite?" and I said "No honey. It's just a baby. Let me get it out of the bucket to show you." I reached in and the little thing bit my finger and was hanging on as I lifted my hand out to show them. Needless to say, she hasn't believed me since.

I've handled many non-poisonous ones, but never "hots". My grandmother loved to tell the story of how her son Buster had a large black rat snake as a pet, loved to go around showing it off, until it bit him in his arm and drew plenty of blood. In true Southern Md. fashion, Buster retaliated by cutting the head off the snake, which is the family tradition I grew up in. Only good snake is a headless one, and the proper decapitation tool was a hoe.

My parents lived in Queensland, Australia before I was born...where they lived was in the sugarcane belt north of Brisbane, where it's just mile after mile after mile of sugar plantations. Every year, the workers would burn the cane fields to prepare for the next crop, and this would unleash a veritable tsunami of rodents and snakes. Apparently it was something out of a B-movie, zillions of rats and snakes scurrying and slithering to safety across the road and the air full of smoke. Mom was apparently a nervous wreck whenever this was going on.

Nice, Natsaddict. Am I right in assuming iguanas are non-native to Florida? The state is practically overrun with invasive species people release into the wild rather than euthanize when they are done with keeping them.

I used to work in Petsmart in Springfield, VA. One day we suddenly heard screaming in the back of the store. We ran back into the kitty litter section where this old woman was having kinipcraps over something and kept pointing at this box of kitty litter.

It seems that she was taking a box off the shelf when this iguana's head just pokes it's head out of a hole in the box of litter.

Security cameras later showed a guy come into the store, cut a hole in the box, and then from a bookbag take out this two to three foot iguana and stuff it into the kitty litter box and leave the store. Apparently he didn't want to take care of it anymore or have the decency just to hand it to us.

Nice, Natsaddict. Am I right in assuming iguanas are non-native to Florida? The state is practically overrun with invasive species people release into the wild rather than euthanize when they are done with keeping them.

You're right, they are "exotics" that were once pets, but got too big. The same is true with the pythons that have been released into the Everglades and becoming a something of major eco problem. The iguana population is growing, as is their road kill. This guy is a little lost, as the canal along which is probably his home is about a quarter mile west of here. When he left, though, he went wandering even further away. It will be interesting to see if he's still around in a few days.

I was driving back from an excursion Downtown when I noticed this sitting in my backyard. It was some sort of young sea bird or crane. I quickly fish-tailed onto my street and ran inside to grab our new Canon EOS Rebel XS 1000D thinking this would be a great opportunity to test it out.

The results varied because I slapped on the 75-300mm zoom lens for the first time with no filters, so the sun really baked these pics out, but here is a decent one.

I am not sure what kind of bird it is, but found it surprising it was just sitting back there. It looks like a juvenile and it’s hard to determine what color feathers it’s finally going to have. It seemed a bit lost and skittish, but not enough to fly or run away when I approached it.

I’ll work on the camera work in time and if any of our resident photographers has any tips or ideas, that would be sweet too.

I am not sure what kind of bird it is, but found it surprising it was just sitting back there. It looks like a juvenile and it’s hard to determine what color feathers it’s finally going to have. It seemed a bit lost and skittish, but not enough to fly or run away when I approached it.

After consulting with my Peterson's field guide to eastern birds, it may be a Limpkin or Ibis.

We've got roadkill galore on the Outer Banks this week. After 2 weeks of the critters having the place to themselves, the island is suddenly packed with people and speeding cars for Thanksgiving. We almost took out a fox Sunday night on Route 12, but he successfully dodged us. And we must have seen 15 deer driving home through our subdivision last night; the speed limit of 20 is their saving grace.

Ban on shark finning in U.S. waters on table in CongressJanuary 12, 2009

Shark conservation billA shark conservation bill introduced last week in Congress would strengthen the ban on finning, in which the valuable fins are sliced off a live shark and the rest discarded.

The fins generally are exported to Asia, where shark fin soup is a delicacy served at weddings and other major events.

The Shark Conservation Act of 2009 would ban the removal of shark fins at sea in U.S. waters."A growing number of shark populations are threatened, and yet the demand for shark fins remains strong," Sonja Fordham, shark conservation director for the Ocean Conservancy, said in a statement. "Loopholes have allowed some U.S. shark finning to go unpunished."

This is a repeat of the 2008 Shark Conversation Act, HR 5741, which passed the House last June, but was withheld from a vote in the Senate.

Shark finning is cited as a primary cause of the global decline in shark population. There has been some local debate around here about the finning and shark dives (now illegal in FL, but the Bahamas are only minutes away). Those in favor of the finning say you can't ask a culture to change after 500-600 years. But its a Chinese culture, not US, and this law only applies to the US. Unlike the open shark dives, this one is more enforceable as it applies to any boat registered in the US or which enters US waters with shark fins.

This is a repeat of the 2008 Shark Conversation Act, HR 5741, which passed the House last June, but was withheld from a vote in the Senate.

Shark finning is cited as a primary cause of the global decline in shark population. There has been some local debate around here about the finning and shark dives (now illegal in FL, but the Bahamas are only minutes away). Those in favor of the finning say you can't ask a culture to change after 500-600 years. But its a Chinese culture, not US, and this law only applies to the US. Unlike the open shark dives, this one is more enforceable as it applies to any boat registered in the US or which enters US waters with shark fins.

Cultural practice is one of the lamest excuses ever invented to justify abhorent practices. If it's wrong, it's wrong, no matter how long the atrocity has been committed.

I think it depends. If the cultural practice is causing harm to other bodies, then I would agree. But something like "peyote trances" that Native American tribes have been using in ceremonies for generations, I think should fully be allowed. Right now in the US, as with most stuff the government can't understand or knows will actually cause the general population to think and expand their views, it is illegal to ingest peyote on a recreational and even sometimes religious basis. There are few organizations that are still allowed to use peyote in traditional religious ceremony in the United States (funny, since our country uses that "freedom of religion" in it's propaganda). In fact, I can think of only one organization off the top of my head: the Native American Church.

Taking peyote is a religious and personal experience. It should be up to the individual and as long as it does no harm to anyone else, there shouldn't be a problem.

But if the cultural practice is stabbing animals to death, cutting off fins, or sacrificing babies, then yes, I think we and the particular culture in question should take a step back and look at what we/they are doing.